extrapolation of coleridge's the rime of the ancient mariner

EXTRAPOLATION OF COLERIDGE’S THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

IN THE COVID-19 SCENARIO

Dr. GANGA NAND SINGH SHIVANI KARN

Assistant Professor, Student,

University Dept. Of English, University Dept. Of English

Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribag. Bhave University, Hazaribag

Jharkhand, India Jharkhand, India

ABSTRACT

Published in 1798, Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the precious gem of

English poetry. The verse demonstrates inexorable sea expanses, human suffering, crime and

punishment, and of course, the human relation with the natural world. With the dramatic

disruption due to coronavirus, the poem is having a new meaning and purpose. In this current

unsteady and nightmarish situation, the poem has been rightly acclaimed as a ‘modern fable’.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner recounts the experiences of a sailor who commits the heinous

crime of killing innocent Albatross and undergoes unutterable agony on his sea voyage. The

universality of the poem cannot be overlooked in the present scenario as not any symbolic

traveler but the people from the whole world feel a bit lost in the sea odyssey and ordeals full

of covid-19 variants and diverse symptoms. The Ancient Mariner commits a crime against the

divine law of Nature; consequently, there is an upheaval in the world of nature. Similarly,

human beings have also challenged Nature and are compelled to suffer for their crime. The

COVID-19 pandemic as per the available sources originated in the seafood wholesale market

in central Wuhan China and quickly spread to various countries. Although, the exact origin of

the COVID-19 is still unknown, specialist blame undue human activity that enabled this

zoonotic disease to jump to people.

KEYWORDS: Ancient Mariner, Post Covid-19, Coleridge, Crime and Punishment, Nature,

Epidemic, Albatross, zoonotic, allegorical, Claustrophobia.

INTRODUCTION

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a celebrated literary ballad based on the universal

Christian theme of ‘crime and punishment’. Inspired by the encouragement and intellectual

stimulation Coleridge received from Wordsworth; he entered into the most creative period of

the Romantic Age and produced a series of extraordinary poems. The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner is among one of the four poems that appeared in Lyrical Ballads (1798). Coleridge

got the idea for the poem from a friend who had dreamt about a skeleton ship, Wordsworth

writes in Fenwick Note “…the poem of the Ancient Mariner founded on a dream, as Mr.

Coleridge said…” The poet has skillfully blended symbols, images, supernatural elements,

horror, medievalism, sensuousness, romantic imagination, mystery, and the beauty of nature

that makes it the representative poem of his age. Coleridge through his accomplished art has

naturalized the supernatural in the poem.

The poem tells the story of a long beard and glittering-eyed Ancient Mariner who stops a

wedding guest and begins to recount his experience of a long sea voyage – his slaughter of an

albatross, the death of his crewmates, his suffering, and eventual redemption. Coleridge proves

himself a skillful storyteller and a profound psychologist; he combines the material world with

the theme of the supernatural and achieves a higher purpose. In recent years, the environment

has become a hot topic of discussion. Thousands of years ago nature may have had more control

over humans. But now the relationship has become one-sided and it can be figured out that the

human is overexploiting nature. The poem attempts to explore moral questions about human

nature and its relationship with nature. During the pandemic when lockdown came into force

everyone was suffering from isolation just like the mariner. The COVID-19 pandemic is

transforming human relations with nature at multiple levels and there is a need to understand

the cause and impact of the global pandemic. We have witnessed bizarre calamities and

unnatural phenomena where we are not accustomed to. It seems that God has sent this

pestilence to punish us for our sinful acts. In India, we witnessed frustrating scenes through the

newspapers, media, and sometimes by naked eyes. . Amidst COVID-19 havoc when we

analyze allegorical aspect of poem, there are a lot of situational similarities. Being disconnected

and alienated from a normal life, humans beings are also compelled to go through quite

breathtaking and unpleasant experiences in completely unknown and unusual surroundings.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVE

The main aim of this article is to analyze the situational similarity between the

circumstances of the ancient mariner and the present surrounding we are belonging to in the

pandemic scenario. This article makes an effort to explore human nature and its relationship

with nature. The paper also focuses on the human predicament and human psychology while

going through hard times ceaselessly. The illustration of the theme of ‘crime and punishment’

is also the objective of this article. In the conclusive part, the article takes an optimistic retreat.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is an immortal poem. Amidst this pandemic, this

poem has bagged the special attention of critics, authors, and literature lovers and they allude

to it as “harrowing and prescient”, and suits the captive audience of the 2020-21 pandemic.

This pandemic has created an unprecedented disruption to daily life for large swaths of

individuals. Ed Yong, 2020 writes, “In his classical hero journey—the archetypal plot structure

of myths and movies—the protagonist reluctantly departs from normal life, enters the

unknown, endures successive trials, and eventually returns home, having been transformed”.

If such a character exists in the coronavirus story, it is not an individual but the entire modern

world.

Various critics recognize The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as an allegorical poem.

Charlotte A D Fiehn in her article Allegory and the Supernaturalism in The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner writes that the poem has achieved allegorical value and the albatross delineates nature

and the slaughtering of the bird refers to the violation of divine law of Nature. She puts the idea

in the words: “The Albatross is also symbolic of the spirit of nature that subsequently punishes

the mariner and his crewmates”. Nayef Ali Al-Joulan and Amer Hassan Al-Rashid, 2012 argue

that “the Mariner’s sinful violation of nature and the consequent physical and mental ordeals

he is left to suffer” results from provoking a “retaliating nature” by killing the albatross. The

mariner interruption of the wedding guest to recount his experience shows that he has learned

about nature’s essential relationship to man and his story is “essential for the forgiveness since

it may stop further violation”. Aside from the albatross, Coleridge presents other substantial

elements of nature as water, wind, sun, and moon and depicts the changes in them through

color symbolism. There is some scope for considering the allegorical perspective of the poem

in the COVID scenario.

TEXTUAL STUDY

Nature is the most powerful and mysterious force of the universe that influences man

greatly. Human beings and nature have shared an intimate relationship since time immemorial.

This relationship has been reflected through the writers and poets throughout the different

culture across the world. A variety of novels, poems, stories, and other genre of literature have

been depicted on the backdrop of issues concerning nature. Human beings have always shown

their fascination for the world around them. The inquiring and imaginative mind of human

beings has responded to nature in multifold ways. But, unfortunately, in recent years human

beings have exploited natural resources and nature to their extreme. People have become more

inclined to materialism that in turn has led to the rat race and unhealthy competition among

fellow beings. More and more deadly weapons have been developed which can deliver death

and destruction at hundred fold scales. Man takes this as his success but in reality, it has brought

extreme trials and tribulations, difficulties and disasters for men and this is the worst cause of

human degradation and deprivation. The selfish men will one day destroy their most beautiful

and plentiful Earth and thus, the foolish man alone will be responsible for destroying himself

and his wonderful Heaven. Therefore, scholars and thinkers have expressed their deep concern

for the environmental issue.

In the history of English Literature, the eighteenth century was the age of stabilization,

tolerance, and growth of wealth and prosperity. The approaching industrial revolution had

made man fanatic for material love. At the end of the century, artists and intellectuals sought a

break from the 18th-century conventions. In 1798, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor

Coleridge together inaugurated the Romantic Age with the Publication of their Lyrical Ballads,

thus opened a new chapter for Nature-Literature in History of English Literature. The slogan

of this age was “The Return to Nature” and they conceived humanity in the lap of nature.

Whenever a man gets disillusioned by the world around him, he tries to satisfy his

inquisitiveness through literature. Heavily shaken by the corona pandemic many of us are

currently thinking about how we could overcome this unprecedented situation. The poem helps

us to step into the supernatural world of Mr. Coleridge and enlighten our soul as well as paves

a way to understand the real complexity of the human conflict.

In the Corona pandemic thinkers and scholars have addressed The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner as “the epic poem you need for quarantine” and the 1798 poem appears to be one that

was made for 2020-21. Angela Cockayne, an artist on the faculty of Bath Spa University

collaborated with the Arts Institute of the University of Plymouth and assembled a company

of actors, singers, writers, scientists, naturalists and one polar guide for online reading of

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. They read the poem at the rate of

about sixteen lines a day. This Ancient Mariner being read was inaugurated on 18th April 2020

with church bells and a surging crowd, stilled by the seductive voice of Jeremy Irons, a

celebrated English actor, and activist. Other actors Tilda Swinton, Alan Cumming, and Willem

Dafoe, singers Marianne Faithfull and Iggy Pop, novelist Hilary Mantel, poet Simon Armitahe

and other talented artists contributed to this being read with their voice. The special effects of

bells, birds call, bubbles, howling winds, roaring waves, cracking ice, whale songs, etc. added

another charm to the success of the reading.

The Rime of Ancient Mariner is a parable of the old sailor’s crime against Nature

(killing of Albatross), punishment, repentance, and reconciliation (forgiveness from God). Set

in the backdrop of middle age the poem is a tale of retribution and the christen theme of ‘crime

and punishment’ dominates it. The seven-part ballad begins as a tale told by an ancient mariner.

Like Wandering Jew, a character from Christen legend who taunted Jesus on the way to

crucifixion was cursed to wander on the earth until Judgment Day, Ancient Mariner, the

protagonist of this poem also commits the terrible crime of killing Albatross and is condemned

by the way of penance to travel from land to land and teach by his example love and reverence

to all. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner begins suddenly and abruptly and fixes our attention

from the very first line where the mariner stops a man who is on his way to a wedding ceremony

and begins to recount his experience of a long sea voyage. The wedding guest is drawn up

towards the “long grey beard and glittering eyes” of the Ancient Mariner and reluctantly listens

to the mariner’s story. The mariner’s account begins with the ship leaving the harbor with two

hundred crewmen and sailing southward. A tremendous storm blows and the ship even furthers

to the South Pole where the crew is awed as they encounter the “mist and snow”. An Albatross,

a big sea bird comes to their ship and breaks the pristine lifelessness of the Antarctic. All the

mariner of that ship welcomes it as a “Christian Soul” and feeds it and also plays with it. A

good harmony develops between the Ancient mariner and the albatross; as it “came to the

mariner’s hollo!” They take the bird as a good omen, as after its arrival the wind starts to blow.

The most crucial point of the mariner’s tale is confessing his crime; he kills the innocent bird

in an act of wantonness.

God save thee, ancient Mariner!

`From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—

Why look’st thou so? –with my crossbow

I shot the ALBATROSS.

On this poignant act of the mariner, first, the other crewmen in the ship blame him but soon

they change their mind when fair breeze continues, they come to believe the bird was the source

of the “fog and mist” and supports the killing of bird thus they also accomplice themselves in

the sin. Their punishment begins, the wind drops, and the ship becomes trapped in the vast

silent sea. We come to know the outlook of Mariner towards nature when he says –“Yea, slimy

things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea.” All the crewmen undergo unutterable

sufferings. Amid the rotting ocean, the sailors grow so thirsty, their “throats unslaked with

black lips baked” but there isn’t even a drop of clean water they can quench their thirst:

Water, water everywhere

And all the board did shrink;

Water, water everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

Coleridge seems a visionary with the prophetic powers as when we analyze the poem

in the 21st century, we encounter a lot of similar scenarios between the physical and mental

condition of crewmen and the people belonging to the post-COVID-19 world. Like Mariner,

the entire world has set on an archetypal journey that runs right into the dilemma, suffering,

and desolation. When the Mariner begins his saga of trial and tribulation, the wedding guest

tries to resist being stopped by the grey-beard man but is left with no choice and sits down as

a promising pupil to listen. The wedding reception refers to the social gathering or social life

and amidst the pandemic the modern man’s compulsion to alienate from the social gathering

or social life. The ‘wedding’ as though refers to a luxurious setting where nature is subdued.

Like Wordsworth, Coleridge throws light on the natural world and the powers it asserts over

humans. The killing of albatross can be perceived as man’s pointless attempt to master nature.

Like the other crewmen who also accomplice themselves in the crime, people belonging to this

era are unknowingly appreciating and following the inhumane and barbarous action that causes

human degradation, deprivation, and destruction. The paradoxical statement ‘water, water

everywhere” rang again with an outcry “give me oxygen, oxygen! Oxygen! Ah oh…”when the

coronavirus has spread completely in the air and many corona patients met their ultimate doom

due to the shortage of oxygen cylinders. One of the most striking lifestyle changes resulting

from the COVID-19 is the mandatory use of a mask to reduce the risk of catching and

transmitting the disease. The dead Albatross hanging around the neck of Mariner reminds him

of the spiritual burden of his crime whereas the mask keeps us fresh with the ghoulish horrors

of COVID-19.

The natural world communicates through the supernatural powers to punish the Ancient

Mariner. The Mariner along with his shipmates undergoes physical and psychological havoc

in the limbo-like situation. They are cut off from normal life; they are denied the basic ability

to communicate and compelled to be in isolation even in each other’s company. Suddenly,

mariner catches the sight of a mysteriously approaching skeleton ship; an iota of hope touches

him. Mariner's throat is dry, he sucks his blood, so he can utter for help. The logically

impossible fact that this is moving while the mariner’s ship is stuck creates scary contrast. The

ship is carrying two women figures “Death and his mate, Death-in life” who are gambling with

dice to determine the fate of sailors including the Mariner just like the soldiers who diced for

Jesus’ clothes after his death on the cross. The two hundred crewmen are bestowed with death,

their souls pass “like whizz of my (mariner’s) crossbow” and the only one man alive on the

ship is Mariner s his soul has been won by Life-in-Death. Mariner undergoes suffering worse

than Death. Detached from his normal life he suffers from Claustrophobia. After the suffering

of seven days and seven nights spiritual transformation occurs within him, he gets fascinated

by the “rich attire” of water snakes and blesses them “unaware”.

‘ A spring of love gushed from my heart’.

At this moment, the Ancient Mariner realizes that he can pray, the dead albatross falls

off from his neck into the sea and his guilt is partially expiated. He is brought back to land by

the angelic spirit.

So, the present scenario has got similarities with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as

the contemporary ecological catastrophe has effectively put the men into isolation, and the man

is subjected to indefinite despair and frustration and lockdown upon lockdown has made the

people of the world Claustrophobic like the mariner. After going through the deeply unpleasant

view of death and suffering a modern reader can appreciate the poem with the threat of COVID-

19 and other natural disasters. The lines from the poem “Alone, alone all alone,/Alone on a

wide wide sea!” juxtapose with the challenges of isolation during the pandemic. The death of

two hundred men in atonement for the death of one bird leaves the reader awestricken. This

pandemic has also disrupted normal life; we have encountered pathetic scenes across the world.

The death toll in India has reached more than 4 lakh which is alarming. Moreover, in our case,

the million health care professionals- doctors, physicians, nurses etc. and scientists who have

risked their life and struggling long working hours, fatigue, and extreme psychological stress

to conquer this pandemic can be admired the angelic spirit (just like the hermit who grants the

mariner absolution from sin).

After the first hit of COVID-19, India gambled on lockdown to save millions life. The

declaration of 21 days lockdown on the midnight of 24th March turns millions of migrant

workers into wanderers overnight. Like Mariner who was set on an endless journey in the

ocean, the workers walked under the sun as well as under the moon desperately trying to return

to their home. They battled with hunger, fatigue, mental-physical torments on their journey to

home. These workers have parallels to Mariner as they also undergo death-like situations, a

travelling man even says, “We will die walking before Coronavirus hits us”.

At the end of the poem, the illustration of an embracing theory of love between creatures

makes it truly a moral parable. The wedding guest loses all his interest in the feast and feels

himself wiser with the deep moral lesson. The essence of the poem is reduced to the simplest

and has been conveyed emphatically in the following lines:

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

After getting the true essence of the Mariner’s phantasmal tale, like the wedding guest, the

readers also feel spiritual ecstasy. . Charles Lamb deeply admired the poem for “Human

feeling” whereas Rossetti says, “I conceived that the leading point about Coleridge’s work is

its human love”.

Overall,the Mariner’s text and context of crime, suffering, punishment, redemption and

reconciliation will always be relevant in this materialistic world of cut throat competition until

we comprehend the philosophy of ‘ Live and Let Live’ and ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’

CONCLUSION

The Rime of Ancient Mariner is a poem of par excellence endowed with romantic

beauty based on the theme of crime, punishment, and redemption. The analysis of the poem

says, all the creatures and mankind are bound with one another in such inseparable ties of

relationship that their loss and gain cannot be separated in terms of the individual. The current

situation has got a lot of similarities with the poem. Therefore, The Rime of Ancient Mariner

is still relevant in the current situation when every individual is struggling for survival.

Coleridge has perceived human life as the perpetual struggle between Nature and humans.

Socially and physically disconnected and alienated from normal life, the man is still in dilemma

to accept the 'new normal'. In a nutshell, the moral preaching in the poem opens vistas of peace,

love and wisdom for the human beings amidst the adversities of the pandemic.

REFERENCES

1. Al-Joulan, Nayef Ali and Al-Rashid Amer Hasan. Natural and Artistic

Landscape/Seascape in T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and S.T. Coleridge’s “The Rime

of the Ancient Mariner” Cross-Cultural Communication. Vol. 7, No.2, June 2011, pp.

265-271.

2. “An Observation of Man’s Relationship with Nature from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s

Perspective.” GradesFixer, 20 May 2018, gradesfixer.com/free-essay-

examples/samuel-taylor-coleridge-addresses-humanitys-relationship-to-the-natural-

world/

3. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/comma-queen/the-epic-poem-you-need-for-

quarantine

4. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/05/rime-ancient-mariner-was-

made-2020/611602/

5. https://kevernacular.com/?p=11600

6. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52086274

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